


Self-Sabotage

by twohearts



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Cross-Posted on Tumblr, F/F, Gen, Queer Themes, Teen Alex Danvers, Teen Kara Danvers, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26706169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twohearts/pseuds/twohearts
Summary: “But you promised.”Alex just sighs and shoves her toothbrush into her backpack.“I know, but I just...”“You promised.” Kara’s voice is hard.ORAlex decides to go for a sleepover at Vicki's.
Relationships: Alex Danvers & Kara Danvers, Alex Danvers/Vicki Donahue
Kudos: 22





	Self-Sabotage

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt was: "But you promised" with Kara and Alex.

“But you promised.” 

Alex just sighs and shoves her toothbrush into her backpack. 

“I know, but I just...”

“You promised.” Kara’s voice is hard.

Alex rolls her eyes. Kara forgets that just because she’s impervious to mostly anything and can bring a house down with one punch, she’s not actually intimidating. 

“Look, it’s one night. Okay?” Alex shoves an old t-shirt into her bag. It’s a band shirt, classic black with some fading symbols on the front and back. Very cool. Very aloof. That’s what Alex is going for.

Kara hops off her own bed and trudges over to Alex’s. She’s wearing bunny slippers that Eliza got her a year ago and an oversized Backstreet Boys shirt that Alex has absolutely no idea how she got. Alex would laugh or tease her about it if she wasn’t trying this whole “being a better sister” thing. 

Instead, she scoots over and makes room on her bed as Kara climbs in.

“I’ll be back tomorrow.” She says and tries to grab her pillow out from behind Kara.

“You promised you weren’t going to hang out with them anymore.” Kara refuses to move. In fact, she leans back further into the pillow.

“I’m not hanging out with ‘them,’ I’m sleeping over at Vicki’s.” Alex continues to tug at the pillow. Kara is much heavier than she looks.

“Alex, the whole school- your friends included- hate us. They abandoned you after everything that went down with Kenny. Why would you want to have a sleepover with them?”

Alex sighs. Kara doesn’t get it. Her only friend besides Alex died. But before all of that, Alex had friends. Plenty of them! And Vicki, well, Vicki was her best friend. 

They’d had a spat. What kind of friends didn’t? And, sure, it had been over super important stuff like a kid dying and getting a pedophile arrested, but if Alex was trying to be a better sister, then maybe Vicki was trying to be a better friend? 

“It’s one night.” Alex is getting tired of repeating herself. “I’m allowed to have friends besides you.”

Kara jerks up with a huff, sending Alex hurling back over the side of the bed as she finally gets the pillow.

__

Vicki opens the door before Alex can knock. 

“Hey, Alex.” Vicki drawls and Alex’s heart almost stops. 

Vicki looks different on the weekends. They’d seen each other Friday in Calc, of course; that was when Vicki had asked Alex to sleep over. And, of course, Vicki always looked good, always so put together and fashionable and nice. But away from all of the sweat and hormones of high school, she transformed. Gone was the carefully applied makeup, the neatly tussled hair, and the skirts that were verging on just half an inch too short for school policy. Instead, her hair was slightly damp, her body cocooned in an oversized sweater. She looked comfortable; she looked in control.

Alex’s heart skips a beat.

“Come in.” Vicki waves Alex inside, totally oblivious to Alex’s inner-monologue.

The house hasn’t changed. Same furniture. Same pictures. Same everything. 

“Hi, Mrs. Donahue.” Alex calls.

Mrs. Donahue looks up from the onions she’d been chopping, puts a hand to her hip, and says. “Alex Danvers, as I live and breathe. Haven’t seen you here in a while.”

Alex’s eyes flick to Vicki.

“Alex is sleeping over, Mom.” Vicki’s voice has an air of finality to it. 

“Alright then.” Vicki’s mom smiles. Alex tamps down her jealousy at the ease with which Vicki asks for things, and at the ease with which her mother relents. “Hope tilapia’s okay for dinner, Alex.”

“Sounds great.” 

Vicki’s already tugging Alex upstairs.

Vicki’s room is just like Vicki. It’s pretty clean on a first look. There are bookshelves, a lava lamp, a meticulously managed makeup table. Look a little closer and you see the bookshelf has a thick layer of dust covering its every inch. The lava lamp and half of the makeup are old, clearly handy-me-downs. 

Alex is used to all of that. That’s just Vicki. Always has been and probably always will be. 

She’s a little unprepared for the mass of posters covering Vicki’s walls, even though there are maybe only two new ones. This is, Alex reminds herself, normal. It’s just been awhile. 

“I see you’ve added to your collection.” Alex says under the watchful eyes of a boyband that she vaguely remembers Kara mentioning. 

“Mmhm.” Vicki flops down on her bed. 

“Kara really likes this one too.” She points to the poster.

Vicki’s voice is nonchalant as she says. “Really? Didn’t think the little brat had taste.”

Right, Alex remembers. This was part of their friendship, bonding over the little brats who came in to ruin their lives. Never mind that Vicki’s brother is only three and utterly adores her. 

“I’m, uh,” Alex stammers. “Trying to be nicer to Kara. She’s, uh, been through a lot, you know with...”

Alex finds herself looking at the purple carpeting. 

“Kenny dying.” Vicki finishes. She says it so plainly.

Alex nods. _With Kenny dying. With her parents dying. With Krypton dying._

“Let’s not talk about that.” Vicki hops up from her bed. She takes Alex’s hands and pulls her over to a stack of magazines resting on her bedside table. “You have missed six months worth of Tiger Beat quizzes.”

__

Vicki pulls the blanket up to her and Alex’s chins. They’re on the couch downstairs and it is nearly midnight. This evening has been nice, Alex thinks. It feels like old times with the magazines and the nail painting and the crappy romance movie that Vicki’s seen fifty times. 

It feels like what it’s supposed to be. 

She lets her head rest on Vicki’s shoulder. 

Yeah, this feels right. 

On pure instinct, she wraps an arm around Vicki in a kind of loose hug. 

“What are you doing?”

Alex’s arm is back by her side in a flash. 

Vicki doesn’t seem to notice and Alex suddenly realizes that the voice she heard was one of the characters in the movie. She relaxes, but suddenly the idea of wrapping her arm around Vicki, of even touching Vicki, makes her chest tight. 

Of course, this is the moment that, in a fit of half wakefulness, Vicki leans into Alex, her cheek on Alex’s shoulder and her hair close enough that Alex can smell her sweet shampoo. 

Before a coherent thought can even make it through Alex’s head, her body reacts. Vicki screams as Alex pushes her away.

“What the hell?” Vicki is suddenly wide awake. 

___

Eliza doesn’t ask any questions when she gets a call from Alex a half hour later asking to be picked up and for that Alex is grateful. She doesn’t ask any questions in the awful limbo of the car ride home either. When they’re finally home, she just gives Alex a hug and lets Alex trudge on off to her and Kara’s room.

Kara’s up, because of course she is. She tries to pretend to be asleep, moving her shoulders up and down under her covers and pinching her eyes closed, but to that Alex just rolls her eyes and says.

“I know you want to ask what happened, so just ask.”

Kara opens her eyes and sits up. She doesn’t need them, but she reaches over to her side table out of habit and slips her glasses on. 

“What happened?” She asks, no hint of ‘I told you so’ in her voice.

And, god, that just makes it harder, because really Alex doesn’t know what happened. One moment, she was having the most perfect evening of her life and the next she was pushing Vicki off of her. 

She picked a fight and she doesn’t even know why. There was no reason for it and yet... and yet she needed to get out of there.

She gulps down her feelings and looks Kara straight in the eye as she says.

“You were right.”


End file.
